The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will be holding an international conference in November entitled “Racialisation that Leads to Terrorism: Regional Political Responses and Risk Reduction”.

In reply to an enquiry from Hungarian news agency MTI, the Ministry said a regional anti-terrorism conference will be held in Budapest on 7-8 November, which will be jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), and sponsored by the Ministry of Interior.

The conference will be one of the events in a series of conferences in preparation for the second biennial “high level counter-terrorism week” announced on 28 June 2018 by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, be held in June 2020 in New York.

Those invited to attend the conference include some 130 experts, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and representatives of the countries of the European Economic Area, as well as the representatives of major international organisations such as the UN, the EU, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and NATO.

The conference will include three sessions, all of which will particularly involve the Western Balkans, which is being given priority from the perspective of Hungarian foreign policy, and from which several important organisations have also been invited to attend the conference.

The first session will discuss strategies to prevent terrorist narratives, the second security risks relating to the returning home of terrorist foreign fighters, and the third the involvement of young people in action against violent extremism that leads to terrorism.

“The Budapest regional conference will contribute significantly to reinforcing Hungary’s role within this field, and will provide an opportunity for the country to reinforce its commitment to taking action to combat terrorism”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade emphasised.

(MTI)